Our Verdict – Deliciously Ella

Kirstin: I’ve given my copy away already, and that was before the end of the month. That has to be a first.

Maureen: I had low expectations going in, and they were met. The problem was there was no added oomph to the recipes. Many of them could have benefitted from the addition of more herbs and spices. Also paging through, I was completely uninspired to try any of them, which is unusual for me.

Kirstin: The other thing I found is that I don’t mind going out to find funny ingredients, but every time I started to reading her recipes there was almond milk, or chia seeds, or whatever, and I didn’t think the effort would be worth it.

Maureen: Yes, may times I read a recipes with something I had never heard of and I thought, “Where am I going to find that?” and then I would turn the page.

Kirstin: I didn’t want to do the recipes enough to invest my time or energy in either finding the ingredients or making it.

Maureen: Thinking about some of the other vegetarian cookbooks we’ve done and enjoyed, like “A Modern Way to Eat” or Mary McCartney’s “Food” and you never felt like you were making sacrifices to make the recipes in there, but in this one, it felt like one big sacrifice, which is never good.

Kirstin: I think you’re right.

Maureen: A vegan friend of ours said it wasn’t fair of us to review a vegan cookbook if we’re not vegan ourselves, but it shouldn’t matter if we’re vegan or not. It should just make good food.

Kirstin: It should be all about the food.

Maureen: It’s amazing how well this book has sold, given how terrible it is.

Kirstin: i like trying out new recipes and I like healthy foood, but I didn’t like this cookbook. So who is buying it?

Maureen: It’s a mystery.

“Deliciously Ella”
Overall Grade (A- F): F (from both of us)
Best recipes: Maureen: I didn’t mind the curry that I made, which would be good with a few adjustments. Kiristin: As I don’t even have the book anymore, I can’t remember if there were any.
Grade for Photography (A-F): F: Fake polaroids and a cover photo where her top should have been white and red, but instead was grey in places because they turned down the highlights.
Any disasters? No disasters exactly, just the recipes weren’t very good at all.
Bookshelf or Charity Shop Donation? Charity shop donation, in fact, Kirstin has already sent her copy there.

3 thoughts on “Our Verdict – Deliciously Ella”

Your ultimate assessment of the book is spot on. Earlier, it was like, well we didn’t like the curry because it only had vegetables, or we didn’t like the lasagne because it didn’t have cheese. Whereas you ultimately decided that the problem with the recipes was that they just didn’t taste great, which is the right way to review a book like this. Nicely done. Poor Ella.

The cookbook sold well because it was marketed well (Read “Delicious” Ella).
To be fair I rarely follow any recipe I find to the letter anymore, unless it’s a technique or whatever that is completely new to me. They are ideas to explore.
With experience one should be able to tell before starting that something doesn’t suit, but then if it has any merit at all take the good idea from it and go from there. We borrowed this book from a friend because it looked to have potential, but the only recipe I tried was the curry also reviewed on this site. I thought there might be a misprint with the spices, but was intrigued because I love spice. After four goes my dish bears little resemblance to Ella’s recipe (no potatoes, added chickpeas, added more curry type spices, changed up the cooking so there’s only one cooking pot etc etc). But, it put me on the path to coming up with a satisfying and tasty recipe I might otherwise not have made.
I would not recommend the book either, but I’m making my version of this curry right now and thought I would chime in.